614 THE GLORY OF CHRIST AS GOD-11"IAN. being distinct from God the Father in the literal sense,' for these words intimate so much, " I was by him as one brought up with him, I was daily his delight, I rejoiced before him, and my delights were with the sons of men." If these things be taken literally, they mean a real person inferior and distinct from God. 2. The original Hebrew does not say, " the Lord possessed' me in the beginning of his ways, but >»p acquired or assumed or possessed me in the beginning of his ways," not r'tv71 but ri'tz`1 which gives a fair ground for this interpretation, viz. that the divine nature acquired, assumed or possessed himself of the human soul of Christ as the beginning, head and foundation of all his works and ways, both of creation and providence : So Rev. iii. 14. Christ is called the beginning or head of the crea- tion of God. Mr. Fleming citing these verses at large, " Christology, book III. chapter v. page 469," adds, " What we render in verse 24 and 25. brought forth, the targum renders, by being born in the first verse, and by being created in the next. But the Hebrew word is the same in both, and is justly rendered by AriasMontanos, " formata;" that is, framed, formed or made: As the septuagint to the same purpose renders it byvratnóas, which is of the same import. And what else can he mean, when in verse 30. he represents himself, as one brought up withGod, or as the targum says, " as one nourished upat his side ?" Surely, if this be meant of the first-created Spirit, who is now the soul of the Messiah, no expressions can be more plain as well as na- tural : Whereas if we understand them immediately of the Lo- gos, as the second person of the Trinity, we must get over abun- dance of figures, that can never, I think, be properly either explained or accommodated ; besides our being involved in end- less çriticisms about words." Dr. Goodwin also is positive that these expressions cannot refer to the second person considered in his eternal generation, but they must be referred to Christ as God-man, because they denote an act of the divine will. " Goodwin of the knowledge of God, volume II. page 111, and 189." The learned Dr. Knight supposes this birth of divine wisdom is here coming forth into a human figure and subsistence, or her entrance into the * I readily grant the divine wisdom may he here represented, after the man- ner of the eastern writers, as the counsel, contrivance and the decretive power or will of God in a personal character, as being present with God in the creation of the world, and as produced or brought forih by him . But even this wisdom may be supposed to make the pre -existent soul of Christ in some unknown man- ner, its instrument of operation, as Doctor Goodwin uses the word, and when the sacred writer adds, a Irejoiced daily before him in the habitable parts of his earth; and my delights were with thesons of men ; this seems to cast a stronger aspect upon some real proper person distinct from godhead.
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